Modern Bicycle Facilities

A Review of the Literature!

Sarah Thomas - Northeastern University | November 2013!

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Abstract!
This paper will review the different types of bicycle infrastructure design and policy

initiatives found in other countries, while emphasizing the importance of increasing bicycling in the United States. In this review, it was found that cycling in the United States is gaining popularity and viability as a legitimate form of transportation. There are still, however, major improvements to be made to bicycling infrastructure and public policy in order to increase bicycle usage and popularity. More research can be done into the viability of cycle tracks in urban areas in the United States as they gain acclaim. In the future, more resources should be used in also increasing bicycling education and other such public policy measures to increase awareness about cycling.!

Introduction!
!! The topic at hand is to investigate bicycle usage in the United States. This involves looking at current bike modal splits, different types of bicycle infrastructure, reasons people bike or do not bike, and bicycling safety. Outside of the United States, bicycles are used for a number of different utility purposes, not just for recreation.. Bicycling is important because it is a way to promote healthy and fun activities while reducing roadway congestion and air pollution. A main reason that people do not bike is the perceived danger or difculty associated with cycling for utility, which is something that can be remedied with a combination of education and physical infrastructure. Currently, facility designers and planners have yet to agree on the best practices of bicycle facility design. This paper will review the different types of bicycle infrastructure design and policy initiatives as seen in other countries while emphasizing the importance of increasing bicycling in the United States.! ! As trafc congestion and air pollution reaches dangerous levels worldwide, people look to alternate forms of transportation both to commute to work and to just travel through-

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out the areas they live in. As such, cycling has evolved as a viable form of transportation for many people. However, barriers to giving cycling a signicant mode share (percentage of overall trips taken via bicycle) in the majority of the United States, which are not necessarily present in other places throughout the world. These barriers are often reported to include weather, trip distance, and fear for safety. In select places around the United States, and in many places throughout the world, these barriers have been surmounted in order to provide safe and efcient bicycling networks. An increase in bicycling has many other benets, including more exercise, less air pollution and less roadway congestion.!

Key Words - modal split, bike lane, cycle track, crash rate, bicycle conicts!

Overview of Cycling in the United States!

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Cycling Rates! ! There are many ways to be able to increase the amount of people cycling, and a major way to do this is to increase bicycle commuting. This source focuses on reasons that people do not bike to work, and ways to inuence their decision. Studies have found that people would be more willing to bike to work if there were a larger number of safe bike facilities available. The top four cities by percentage of bike commuters are also among the top cities when looking at highest numbers of bike lanes and paths per square mile (3). It was found that bike paths are not as strongly tied to rates of bike commuting as bike lanes. This could be because bike paths are often constructed in green areas and parks and do not connect to employment centers. This makes a good case for cycle tracks, as they provide the safety of a bike path but the convenience and urban reach of a bike lane. In addition, there is more to be done other than just build physical infrastructure. This infrastructure needs to connect to popular origins and destinations, education and public outreach to commuters needs to occur, and once commuters arrive at work, they need to be provided with adequate and safe bicycle parking.! ! It is also suggested that increased bicycle commuting comes with more separated bicycle facilities (1). In addition, increases are often tied to newly constructed paths and lanes.. The relationship between bike lanes and paths and cycling levels was studied for 90 of the largest 100 US cities, with a positive relationship with the availability of bike lanes and the

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amount of bicycle commuting (1). Cycling safety was also found to be a factor which inuenced the amount of bicycle commuters (1).!

Barriers to Cycling! ! In the sources researched, one point was the agreement that there are many barriers to cycling. An excellent explanation of these barriers exists in Why Canadians cycle more than Americans. Largely, Canada is very similar to the United States in culture, economics, lifestyle, historical development, and climate. Therefore, comparisons between the United States and Canada are much more immediately relevant than those between the United States and parts of Europe and Asia where over 40% of trips are taken by bicycle. Holding all of these similarities constant, it is clear that most Canadian cities appear to have more extensive cycling networks, bike parking, and cycling education and training than most American cities (7). The difference is easily quantiable in that Canadian cities have three times the length per capita of dedicated bicycle facilities than US urban areas, and they also have three times the percentage of trips taken by bicycle than the United States.!

Bicycle Safety!
Cyclists value safety very highly. They will travel off of their direct route even if it takes more time to use the safer route, and this added travel time is the price that individuals are willing to pay for the perceived safety and comfort the attributes provide (10). ! There are many ways to make bicycling safer as it gains popularity, and there is a major push to increase bicycling for both health reasons and as a way to reduce roadway congestion. It was found that infrastructure inuences injury and crash risk for bicyclists. A way to reduce crashes and injuries among cyclists is to purposefully build bicycle-only facilities such as bike lanes or paths. Investing in these facilities leads to an excellent return on investment, as benet-cost analyses suggest that the benets of increased cycling are worth approximately four to ve times the costs of investing in new cycling infrastructure (9).!

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Bicycle Infrastructure!
Bike Lanes!

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! Bike lanes are lanes painted on the roadway in order to give cyclists their own space on a roadway. They are delineated by stripes at a minimum of ve feet apart on the roadway, a bicyclist symbol in the middle of the lane, and are often accompanied by signs in order to inform both cyclists and drivers of motor vehicles of the presence of a bike lane (8).! Bike lanes are usually more easily constructed than other types of physical infrastructure. This is because a bike lane can simply be striped on the roadway by redistributing the amount of space given to cars. One possible way to do this is by decreasing the width of the parking lane of a roadway in order to provide a wider bike lane for cyclists. The results of this are detailed in Parking Lane Width and Bicycle Operating Space. The distance from parked cars to the curb is measured for various parking lane widths, and it was found that there is no relationship between the distance cars park from the curb and the width of the parking lane itself, therefore, an appropriate bike accommodation would be to narrow the parking lane to add a bike lane (4). This gives bicyclists their own area to ride without negatively affecting parked cars or traveling cars.! Although bike lanes give bicyclists the convenience of having a direct route to safely bike to places, there are drawbacks to them as well. A major drawback is the discontinuity in between areas with bike lines in urban areas. This includes moments when bike lanes end abruptly, or when bike lanes are simply installed places with no way to get in between the locations with bike lanes. It was found that cyclists nd ending a lane before an intersection or ending it abruptly would make them both feel unsafe and also make them avoid that area in the future or stop cycling (5). As such, it is clear that although bike lanes have positives, there is still a lot of ground to cover in designing them in smart ways that encourage usage and provide a safe passage for users.!

Cycle Tracks! ! The overall concept of cycle tracks is similar to that of bike lanes: to allow people to

cycle in the same direct route that a car would be able to take. Cycle tracks, however, take safety to the next level by physically separating cyclists from vehicular trafc in a variety of ways, including by installing a curb, being at a higher elevation than cars like on a sidewalk, and by using a different pavement material and color. Therefore, cycle tracks (when part of an overall network) allow bicyclists the exibility to travel throughout the city via direct routes such as a car, while having the safety of being physically separated from both cars and

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pedestrians. Cycle tracks are often accompanied by bicycle-specic trafc control, such as a trafc signal with a specic phase for bicycle trafc (8).! ! Cycle tracks are dually benecial for bicyclists, as they both increase the amount of cycling in an area, and make the roadway safer for all users. A source, Risk of Injury for Bicycling on Cycle Tracks vs. In the Street, researches injury rates for bicycling on a cycle track versus bicycling on a roadway with trafc where a cycle track is available. It was found that for every 0.72 bicyclist injuries that occur on the cycle track, 1 occurs in the roadway, meaning that the cycle track has less of a chance for injury than riding in the road. In addition, there were 2.5 times more cyclists on the cycle track than in the adjacent roadway (6). This data shows that cycle tracks are both safer and more likely to be used than bicycling in street trafc.!

Recommendations and Findings!

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Physical Infrastructure! ! Bicycling has become somewhat of a hot button issue in the past decade in the United States. Most recently, there was a debate during the Boston, Massachusetts mayoral primaries in 2013 solely about sustainable transportation and bicycling in the city. As such, there are ways to increase bicycling in the United States and to make it a more viable form of transportation. Bicycle facilities follow the pattern of if you build it, they will come, as building a new facility almost instantly increases the rate of cycling in the area. While constructing new infrastructure is benecial, it is also important to consider the usage of the infrastructure, and to build facilities which will actually be used. In a survey about desired attributes for a bicycle facility, the most common response was bicycle paths separated from the road, making it clear that this is the best way to increase cycling (2). In addition to having bicycle facilities, facilities must connect appropriate origins and destinations to encourage cycling as an alternate mode of transportation (10). Therefore, having a network of these bicycle facilities is ideal, in order to encourage people to use them for day-to-day activities. ! Policy Initiatives!
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Simply building new facilities, however, is not the only way to increase cycling and

reap the benets of doing so. Cyclists need to have a place to secure their bike, and there needs to be outreach and education about safe cycling and potential routes to take. Providing

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the general public with events centered around bicycles has proven to be a successful approach, as demonstrated in San Francisco when bicycling rates increased by 25.4% after a city-wide bike to work day, even months after the event (8). In addition, other countries such as Great Britain and the Netherlands have bicycle education and even a licensure program for children. By exposing children to cycling, it becomes a habit and a part of their daily life which continues into adulthood. !

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Future Research! The sources researched agreed that off-road, physically separated paths are the safest

place for bicyclists. The existing paths, however, do not necessarily increase bicycling for commuting or for running errands. This is because the common practice in the US is to build these facilities through parks and other green areas, and they do not connect to employment or commercial areas. Future research should be aimed at researching cycle tracks, which give both physical separation and the urban reach and convenience provided by bike lanes. Cycle tracks have been used effectively throughout the world, and the United States could be the place of the next bicycle revolution with the correct mix of infrastructure construction, public policy, and change in the outlook of residents.!

Acknowledgements!
Revision Club, Professor Peter Furth and Professor Daniel Dulaski (Civil Engineering department, Northeastern University)!

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Works Cited!
(1) Buehler, R., and J. Pucher. "Cycling to Work in 90 Large American Cities: New Evidence on the Role of Bike Paths and Lanes." Transportation 39.2 (2012): 409-32. Print. ! (2) Chen, Ching-Fu, and Pei-Chun Chen. "Estimating Recreational Cyclists Preferences for Bicycle Routes Evidence from Taiwan." Transport Policy (2012): n. pag. Print. ! (3) Dill, Jennifer, and Theresa Carr. "Bicycle Commuting and Facilities in Major U.S. Cities: If You Build Them, Commuters Will Use Them." Transportation Research Record 1828.1 (2003): 116-23. Print. ! (4) Furth, P., D. Dulaski, M. Buessing, and P. Tavakolian. "Parking Lane Width and Bicycle Operating Space." Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board 2190 (2010): 45-50. Print. ! (5) Krizek, K., and R. Roland. "What Is at the End of the Road? Understanding Discontinuities of On-street Bicycle Lanes in Urban Settings." Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment 10.1 (2005): 55-68. Print. ! (6) Lusk, A. C., P. G. Furth, P. Morency, L. F. Miranda-Moreno, W. C. Willett, and J. T. Dennerlein. "Risk of Injury for Bicycling on Cycle Tracks versus in the Street." Injury Prevention 17.2 (2011): 131-35. Print. ! (7) Pucher, J., and R. Buehler. "Why Canadians Cycle More than Americans: A Comparative Analysis of Bicycling Trends and Policies." Transport Policy 13.3 (2006): 265-79. Print. !

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(8) Pucher, John, Jennifer Dill, and Susan Handy. "Infrastructure, Programs, and Policies to Increase Bicycling: An International Review." Preventive Medicine (2009): n. pag. Print. ! (9) Reynolds, Conor CO, M. Anne Harris, Kay Teschke, Peter A. Cripton, and Meghan Winters. "The Impact of Transportation Infrastructure on Bicycling Injuries and Crashes: A Review of the Literature." Environmental Health 8.1 (2009): 47. Print. ! (10) Tilahun, N., D. Levinson, and K. Krizek. "Trails, Lanes, or Trafc: Valuing Bicycle Facilities with an Adaptive Stated Preference Survey." Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 41.4 (2007): 287-301. Print.

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